Thursday, September 27, 2007

Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus, no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and all that.

But this is an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can't smoke but Muslims can:

Vancouver's hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through Vancouver.

In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural space for the city's Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption...

[Emad Yacoub] said hookah lounges are essential for immigrants from hookah-smoking cultures, because it helps them deal with the depression common for newcomers and gives them places like they have at home.

By creating a special exemption for Muslims - who do seem to be the only immigrant group actively demanding these sorts of “cultural accommodations” we are basically declaring our Muslim citizens worthy of special treatment and, at the same time, unworthy of the health concerns which are purported to be the basis of general smoking bans.

The state, in other words, is prepared to treat Muslims as free-born adults who can weigh the "cultural value" (ie, the pleasures) of smoking against the health risks. But not the rest of us.

Hermione smokes a little and has felt the fascist grip of Canuck nannyism tighten on her over the years during our sojourns to Toronto. I'll have to tell her to light up and when anyone hassles her, she should say, "Back off! I'm Muslim, Bub!" even though she's so melanin deficient that she can be used to set a white balance.

By now, the quote in the title is as groan-inducing after only a few days as "Where's The Beef?" is today after two decades. However, Uber has gathered 10 examples of stun gun lovin' action including this #4 entry which I'd seen before, but never shared because it's kind of depressing. I'll wait while you get aghasted, too...

OK, while stupid dumbasses harming themselves is usually mildly entertaining and people generally do dumb stuff when they've been drinking and are stupid, I've never been that drunk with hot babes AND suggested, "You know what would be fun, guys? Getting out the camera and zapping each other with the stun gun AND throwing shirkens into our asses! Yeah!!! Hey, Britney, why don't you sing a little before we zap ya?"

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Joe Klein is a Clinton water-carrier and general tool, but what is amazing is that he is so up his own ass that he doesn't even realize that he's refuting his own point with his own "evidence" in his poo-fling entitled "Why Drudge is a Disgrace"

I know this is old news, but this guy is shameless. The headline, with a photo of a three-quarters crazed Hillary, is HEALTH INSURANCE PROOF REQUIRED FOR WORK but the linked story says this:

At this point, we don't have anything punitive that we have proposed," the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans."

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

How stupid does he think we are? Answer: Extremely dumbolic.

Look at the bold text above. How is what Drudge wrote different from what Hillary! said?

The title of this post is something Hermione and I say to each other whenever we see a trailer for a comedy which features a shot of some pet being in a cast or something. (e.g. "Problem Child" and that one where a dog is in a full body cast; "There's Something About Mary", perhaps?)

The smug, unfunny, bitter, angry, bigoted and unhinged jackass was on Blitzed Wolf's "Situation Room" program because, well, I guess because there are no better commentators available to analyze world events than bitter asstacklers like Maher.

For those short on time (and weak of stomach), the co-star of "D.C. Cab" calls Dubya a liar and anyone who doesn't spew the defeatist and self-hating shibboleths of the extreme Left "stooges." Yeah, right, Bill. Your speech rights sure are being infringed, aren't they? When Wolf Blitzer is calling you out on your bullsh*t, perhaps it's time to stick to what you're best at: being insincere to hot black women.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Tomorrow morning is when the Digital 'Smiley Face' Turns 25 thanks to Carnegie Mellon professor Scott E. Fahlman, who typed a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis to form the first "emoticon." To celebrate this moment, let's give Professor Fahlman a couple of \m/.

JIHADIST IN MY BACKYARD UPDATE - The intellectually-crippling effects of political correctness and multi-culturalism are on full display in this vacuous Freep article which is headlined, "Armed student's motives unclear Dearborn."

His face painted black, Houssein Zorkot entered a park in east Dearborn Sept. 8, cocked an AK47 he had bought the same day, and then tried to flee police after they confronted him, authorities say.

Were those the actions of a confused young man or those of a potential terrorist with ill intentions?

Dearborn authorities say it's unclear what Zorkot, a 26-year-old medical student from Dearborn, was up to when he was in Hemlock Park armed with the AK47 he had purchased about 1 p.m. that day.

The FBI and police are investigating Zorkot, who appears sympathetic to Hizballah, a terrorist group. But for now, they've found no direct links between him and any terrorist organization, Dearborn Mayor John O'Reilly Jr. said. Dearborn police referred all calls to the mayor.

A reader's comment captures the reality disconnect nicely:

Let's flip this one around.

Let's say a 26 year old white male who had maintained a neo-nazi website was arrested stalking around a public park with an automatic weapon. Think that story would get much coverage? It would be on the front page of every local paper for days, and RIGHTFULLY SO.

Double standards are fun.

Yep. (h/t: Power Line)

ADRENALINE DODGE = TEH SUCK - Finally got past the T. Rex boss fight in Tomb Ho Anniversary last night after getting the hang of the new Adrenaline Dodge maneuver that replaced the cool bullet time kickoff effect from Tomb Ho Legend. I got so frustrated that I started checking online to see if others were having a problem with it. (Others were.)

The big problem is that despite being a Games For Windows title - which requires out-of-box support for the 360 gamepad - the buttons when using the pad aren't identified; all the commands are as if you're using a mouse and keyboard. Lame. Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Bioshock (I believe) change according to the control method - so should this.

ADD GLOBAL WARMING ALONG WITH POLITICS AND RELIGION TO THE LIST of topics you don't discuss in polite company. I was surprised to get a message at MySpace from an old co-worker whom I'd lost touch with after changing jobs. While I was catching her up about what was happening with my mother and the insane situation so many people are (and will) face with regards to paying for it I made the observation that no one seems to be too aroused by this real problem, but they're in a full-blown Apocalyptic tizzy over mythical man-made global warming.

Uh-oh. She was a Believer. And like most Believers, generally disinterested in the real inconvenient truths with regard to her religious faith. The best part was when she disqualified Michael Crichton's comments because he was just a silly M.D. who writes books and creates TV series and wasn't an environmental scientist who preached the true faith as received from the Goreacle.

Perhaps she'll Google the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age, and wonder how it is that the planet used to be a tropical environment awash in vegetation and dinosaurs AND covered in hemispheric glaciers without the presence of - much less influence from - the accursed human race.

I'm not holding my breath.

DIRK'S DISH DU JOUR - I have this as my wallpaper at home, so enjoy MAW (model-actress-whatever) Kelly Brook.

While the obvious babealiciousness is obvious, the photographer in me marvels at just how much flash power must've been necessary to make that picture.

The round-up is at Malkin's Haus o' Style, but it appears that this tool was being rude to John Francois Kerry (D-France) and unlike conservative speakers like Ann Coulter, instead of allowing the speakers to be harassed (or have pies thrown at them), the authorities rushed in to manhandle the twit, Mayor Daley-style.

This is in keeping with traditional fascistic liberal policies regarding dissenting speech as we saw when the psychopathic Al Franken violently attacked someone who dared exercise their First Amendment rights in a manner which Laughin' Al disapproved of in 2004; earning the protester the privilege of being body-slammed by the former cokehead SNL writer-cum-Senatorial wannabe. Meanwhile, physical attacks upon conservatives will continue unabated.

===========

UPDATE: Kerry, who droned on oblivious to the distress of a citizen belatedly released a statement condemning the tasing - actually, I think he was zapped with a stun gun, not a proper Taser, which is a gun the fires darts trailing wires that deliver the shock - prompting one wag to observe that "he was for tasing before he was against it." Every conservative talk show I heard played clips, but the best context for this dolt may be found in this classic Monty Python bit.

Monday, September 17, 2007

DIRK® MINI-REVIEWS IT FOR YOU: LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD - Better than expected sequel that will be more enjoyable if you haven't seen the trailers or online previews which give away every single major action beat and wisecrack. Willis wears John McLain like a broken-in leather jacket and the Mac kid wasn't as annoying as he is in the Apple ads. The story is convoluted, the villain poorly motivated, and the "yeah, right" moments a little too yeah-righty, but stuff blows up real good, Maggie Q is hot, and it's a good popcorn flick. Score: 7/10 - See it at the dollar show.

DIRK® MINI-REVIEWS IT FOR YOU: AB-NORMAL BEAUTY - Another disappointing mess from Oxide Pang whose "The Eye" (currently being Americanized and remade with Jessica Alba in the lead) was a decent J-horror flick. In this one, a cute Hong Hong art student becomes obsessed with photographing death, much to the disgust of her (implied) lesbian girlfriend and the nerdy film student who stalks and obsesses about her. Weird for weird's sake, it takes a crazy left turn into "Saw" country and the final revelation is craptacular. It has a mood and a look and the girls are cute - though the fact that the actresses are sisters (they don't look alike and I was surprised to learn this) kills any hoped-for hot girl-girl action - but the story goes nowhere and makes little sense. Score: 3/10 - Catch it if it's on cable.

DUBYA BENDS OVER FOR HIS ENEMIES AGAIN - Instead of picking Ted Olson to replace the lame-o Alberto "VO5" Gonzales as Attorney General, Dubya can't find the stones to say "bring it on" to the fascist Dems who have already started Borking Olson, so he's picked some retired judge named Michael Mukasey is is suspect simple because Chuckie Schumer hasn't smeared him yet. Dubya is a coward and a punk. Can't wait for him to be gone.

HAVE THE DEMS ALREADY LOST IN 2008? - Last week's disgusting smear ad by Can'tMoveOn.Argh against Gen. Patreaus that was NOT repudiated by the surrender and appeasement Dems wishing to be Commander-in-Chief sharply illustrates the lousy choice Americans have in next year's Presidential election. On the Stupid Party side are a bunch of warm beer "moderates" who are willing to pay lip service to fighting Islamofascism and on the Dem side are a pack of appeasers and traitors.

That the Dems can't even bring themselves to say, "Dubya has fought the war the wrong way; we'll fight it the right way." even if that would be insincere says everything we need to know about their disqualifications to hold power. "The war is lost." sends a message of weakness, aid and comfort to our enemies but the Dems don't care as long as it means political damage to Dubya. These Democrats aren't Americans. They are traitors. Since no one is going to round them up for their treasons, the best we can hope for is that the People wake the fook up and not continue voting for them. (Yeah, that's gonna happen.)

THE JUICE AIN'T LOOSE (YET) - So the double-murdering O.J. Simpson is in jail for robbery in Vegas. Yeah, it's like busting Capone for tax evasion, but it's a start.

APPLE BATTERY UPDATE - The battery crapped out after about 20 hours, but after recharging it and using it for 2.5-3 hours over the weekend, the battery gauge on the main screen shows it as being full, though the clock/battery gauge screen shows some drain. Stay tuned.

RETHINKING JESSICA ALBA'S THESPIAN SKILLS? - While trying to track down some weird behavior by my new DVD deck, I popped in the first disc of "Dark Angel" - the series that made her a star - and she didn't seem as lame, though I'm not about to retract my criticisms yet. I'd blocked out all the lame supporting characters at the Jam Pony office, too. The show always wavered in its makeup and got strangled by Fox (who else) before it could stabilize, though they did give it two complete seasons. (Co-creator James Cameron ignored it until it was too late.) It had more of a chance than "Firefly" had.

DIRK'S DISHES DU JOUR - Since they were the best part of "Ab-Normal Beauty", I give you Rosanne and Race Wong.

Friday, September 14, 2007

APPLE BATTERY WOES? - The 80GB iPod Classic is advertised to have a 30 hours audio play time but it appears I'll be lucky to get HALF that much. After only a couple of hours of play on an overnight charge - it's supposed to fully charge in 4 hours and it was on the dock for about 10 hours - the battery gauge was already down to 3/4. I've been running it on shuffle play for the past 12.5 hours (at this writing) and it's down to about 20%. I forgot to bring the AC adapter so when it dies in the middle of this afternoon, I'll be back to listening to the radio until I get home. Oh, bother.

My first iPod had a crap battery, too. I remember having to send it in for replacement right off the bat when I found the battery was only lasting about three hours (IIRC) back when they were supposed to last 12 hours. What a pain.

I see that this guy was a third-year medical student; aren't jihadists motivated by poverty and desperation? That's what they tell us even though some of the 9/11 highjackers were engineers, the latest bombers in the UK were doctors as is Al Queda's #2 goon. No, the only reason people want to kill us is because of Israel and Evil Capitalist Corporations. Pffft.

FRIDAY FIVER:

1. Have you ever run away?

No. Does avoidance count?

2. What is the longest you've dated someone?

15 years.

3. What don't you like to think about?

All the problems in my life.

4. What was your last illness?

I guess a cold or something earlier this year.

5. Do you like to get revenge?

Look who you are asking.

DIRK'S DISH DU JOUR - Because you can never have too much Elisha Cuthbert!

It's too small to see here, but in the fine print at the bottom it says that "The Quiet" and "Captivity" would be in theaters in summer 2006. Did the latter get shelved for a whole year? I know there was a stink about their billboards in L.A., but if they waited a year to release, they missed the whole heyday of the torture horror genre. Clean out your desks, you losers in Marketing!

NEWS I CAN'T USE DEPT. - I was talking with Hermione last night and she said, "Bad news. Jessica Alba's off the market. She's back with Cash." I replied, "Oh, like I was just poised to make my move." If only...

BTW, the ads for "Good Luck Chuck", her new movie with Dane Cook look like she's going to try to do some pratfall comedy. Oddly, this may work for her. We'll see.

The purpose of the Hottie Thespian Series (pat. pend.) is to discuss the overlooked talents of beautiful actresses who don't get their due because people hate them because they're beautiful. And to post hot pictures of them, too! Usually they have to de-glam themselves to get noticed (e.g. Halle Berry, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman), but what we'll try to do is focus on the performances they give while still looking purdy.

Our first contestant is Elisha Cuthbert who starts off at a disadvantage because she came to prominence by playing Kim Bauer on "24", who started off the whole series by sneaking out of the house and being a distraction to her father, uber-hardcore mack daddy Jack Bauer.

By the time the day was done, her poor mother, who had to look for her ended up having to schtup a terrorist to protect her daughter virtue, getting amnesia, and eventually shot to death by Jack's terrorist ex-girlfriend/CTU mole. Yeah, she looked hot in her cheerleader t-shirt, but what a twit she was.

Her ignominy grew in the second season when she got got in a leg trap and menaced by a mountain lion, considered a low point for the show until the dreadful sixth season happened. Mysteriously, the producers thought we were supposed to accept that this bimbette was qualified to work at CTU, but considering the mole-du-jour plotting for the show, why not? When she was last seen in Season Five, she was shacked up with her therapist and a total bitch to Jack, blaming him for her mother's death. Uh......wrong.

Her first big movie was "The Girl Next Door" in which she played a high school student with a dark past as a porno actress - yeah, I know that she should've been too old for high school and not been Traci Lords, if you follow - and while it was regarded as a "Risky Business"-ish teen comedy, there was some nuances to her performance as a damaged girl who knew that men expected her to behave in real life as she did in her films.

But the real showcase for her was the weird, creepy art house flick, "The Quiet" (DVD review here) in which she plays a high school hottie (a stretch) who is being molested by her father and she is of a decidedly mixed mind about it. The review mentions the scene where she reveals her secret to another girl and that's what I was thinking when I watched the movie - Elisha's got some chops, but will she get to showcase them?

Her last film, the torture horror flick "Captivity", flopped at the box office, but the whole genre seems to have run it's course as "Hostel 2" also bricked despite actually garnering some decent reviews. (If "Saw 4" fails at Halloween, that will pretty much put the button on this ugly genre.) To blame Cuthbert isn't fair, though her turn in the "House of Wax" remake should've counted for something unless teen fans don't care about her.

Coming this fall is "He Was A Quiet Man" which puts her across from Christian Slater (who looks like he's trying to reclaim some acting cred) and William H. Macy. Here's the trailer:

Dark hair? Check. Paralyzed? Yep. Serious ACTING? Could be!!! The movie looks a little predictable and showy, but at least it's not another three-quel.

Finally, what does this picture make you think of?

When is "They Call Me Blondie: The Deborah Harry Story" going into production?

Finally, I was discussing with some comic book store clerk about how wrong it was that Jessica Alba was now wearing creepy blue contact lenses in the second "Fantastic Four" and suggested that they should've cast a natural blond like Elisha instead. He replied that she would've looked like how Jack Kirby drew Sue Storm. So, why didn't they cast the role properly? (Not that the movies would've have been mediocre to downright sucky with a different cast.)

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

I found some chocolate Pop-Tarts here at work and as I was nibbling them just now, it occurred to me that I NEVER have them warmed in the toaster as they're designed to be prepared. I'm sure I've had them warmed once or twice in my lifetime, but I wouldn't even think to find a heating device nowadays. Anyone else cook their Pop-Tarts? Beuller? Beuller?

I've been rolling with a 40GB 4G monochrome iPod for about three years now and have been bumping up against it's space limits lately and have been looking to upgrade once the sixth-generation units came out. I was hoping for a touchscreen widescreen unit - which arrived in the form of the iPod Touch - but as I mentioned below, it's too expensive and much too small in capacity, so I went with an 80GB iPod Classic.

I thought I'd get a 160GB model, but decided I didn't need that much space and saved the Benjamin. The first surprise was how small the box was - about the size of a thick paperback book. Apple used to include an AC adapter and dock, but now they'll sell these to you for $78, and their omission means a smaller box. (I didn't take photos of my ritualistically unpacking, so you'll just have to go to one of the other 37,000 sites out there with galleries of the Apple fruits fetishing their new toys.) The iPod is on top of a tray which you pull out to get an elegant folder containing the sparse (and useless) instructions. A sealed packet with the earbuds, the USB cable and a plastic piece that I guess adapts for a different dock than the one I have is on the bottom of the box. The Classic fit fine in my existing dock despite being about half as thick.

That's the first surprise of the Classic: It's damn small! I'd seen the 5G video units and noted they were smaller, but this is crazy. Combined with the larger display, my trusty neoprene case/clip doesn't fit. Drat. The click wheel is also a hair smaller and the button is recessed instead of being an outtie and I'm finding it hard to precisely and quickly scroll the darn thing with my large, manly hands. That's a minus.

The screen is gorgeous. Using an LED backlight, it's bright and clear and accurately shows the lousy compression that CloneDVD applied to its rip of my DVD of "The Animatrix". Perhaps a higher bit rate will fair better, but at least it shows that the screen will notice corner-cutting. (BTW: The 1:40 title compressed down to ~480MB.)

The largest problem I ran into was the fact that my old iPod somehow had more stuff on it than showed up in the library meaning that if I just synced the new one, I'd have less content than I had. Using the instructions here I copied the music off the old iPod and imported it to iTunes. Unfortunately, as I suspected may happen, this now meant I had duplicate tracks for almost my entire collection and had to MANUALLY delete the dupes; a not-very-fun 2-1/2-hour-long process. [sigh] Once cleaned up, it was about another hour or so to drag the 9500+ songs over to the new iPod.

In addition to the iffy touch response and lack of accessories, the other gouge is how the "80GB" unit only has 74.3GB of usable space after formatting - a 7% loss - and while this is nowhere near the 35% shrinkage of the Xbox 360's 20GB HD space, it's still annoying. Even with a bunch of Strong Bad video podcasts and "The Animatrix", I'm only at 41.2GB used, so I'm feeling good about going with the smaller unit.

When the iPod was introduced six years ago at price points of $399 and $499 for 5GB and 10GB respectively, I loved the idea of the gadget, but hated the inflated price Lord Jobs' Apple commanded for it. I argued that it needed to come down to a commodity price and for the past couple of years, it's made some good moves, but now it's really at a price point that can't be ignored and it's a slick bit of kit to boot. (If you don't have a lot of music, then check out the 4GB Nano for $149 for it has a nice screen, too.)

PROS:• Nice display and interface• Thin and new metal front is solid• Good value

Note: The battery life is supposed to be 30 hours for audio and 5 hours for video playback, but since I just got it, I'll have to update later with real-world observations.

UPDATE: Uh-oh. While the iLounge review said that battery life was better than advertised, it appears that I've got a bum unit as the battery gauge is showing 2/3rds full after only a couple of hours of play. My first iPod (a 2G bought cheap when the 3Gs were introduced - look up the date yourselves) had a crap battery that died after only a couple of hours and right now I'm doing a drain test to see if I just got screwed my Apple again. Yeah, the warranty will cover it, but what a PITMFA. Stay tuned.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A U.S. citizen has confessed to using an axe to kill a Dutch student after failing to find a soldier to attack, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The suspect, Carlos Hartmann, 41, of Tecumseh, Mich., has confessed to the Sept. 8 killing on a train platform in the southern city of Roosendaal, defence lawyer Peter Gremmen said.

Gremmen said Hartmann wanted to punish the Netherlands for its support of the war in Iraq.

Hartmann appeared before a judge Tuesday and was ordered held for another two weeks for investigation.

"He hates soldiers, and says that the army kills people, so it would be legitimate if he were also to kill someone . . . from the American military - or from its NATO allies," Gremmen said in a telephone interview.

When he failed to find a soldier at the Roosendaal train station, "he got such a crazy, disturbed idea that he killed a civilian," Gremmen said.

Hartmann did not attempt to escape and was arrested shortly after the killing.

Nothing says "We must have peace!" like random violence against defenseless civilians. Talk about irony-deficiency! Why do I know that in the extreme Left, the only regret they have is that he wasn't able to kill a soldier as he wanted.

The greater irony? Our soliders are fighting and dying to protect the safety of these f*cktards. How's that for ingratitude?

Oh, I'm loving this one because I've constantly been pointing out that Apple users are some of the stupidest life forms on the planet. (Only dog owners are dumber.) Last Wednesday, Apple cult leader/God-Emperor Steve Jobs rolled out the new line of iPods, many of which are quite snazzy. The widescreen touchscreen player everyone wanted came out as the iPod Touch which is basically an iPhone without the crappy phone part. Unfortunately, it's a flash-based unit that costs too much compared to the hard drive-based iPods, so it's a no go for me. I would've picked up one of the black 160GB Ipod Classics yesterday if stupid Beast Buy had it in stock.

But, what was the bestest news of the day was that Apple was slashing the price of the iPhone $200 a mere 69 days after legions of self-important schmucks waited hours in line to obtain one of these hyped devices. Prices always drop on tech: My first iPod, a 10GB 2G unit was $320; my second, a 40GB 4G monochrome was $380; now I'm going to get one that's four times the capacity as well as capable of doing video on its spiffy color screen for roughly the same price. However, these are price drops/feature increases spread over five years, not a one-third price cut two months on. The best headling was this ZD Net blog's: Apple rewards iPhone beta testers with $200 early buyer penalty.

While Lord Jobs quickly tried a backpedal by offering refunds of the difference for those who'd bought in the prior two weeks and a $100 credit for future Apple store purchases, it still doesn't change the fact that the arrogant bastard kicked his most faithful sheep straight in the nuts. But, for all their squawking, how many Apple sheep are going to stop worshipping the man and company who sheared them? [crickets]

My first thought after laughing my ass off at these victims of their own snobbery was ,"I can't wait to hear what Dvorak says about this on TWiT."The podcast is up here and the lead story was exactly this and Dvorak opined that this was Jobs just trying to prove what suckers the fanboys are. He went on to say that Apple must be panicking over the dropoff in sales after the herd gulped down their purchases in the first few days, leaving few sane people interested in a phone that will cost over $2000 over the term of the contract. It helps that the iPhone has been unlocked allowing usage with any network, not just AT&T, but still, yikes. Host Leo Laporte poo-pooed the outrage, but he's a blind Apple fanboy, so apply the requisite amount of sodium chloride to his comments. The show is streamable from the link, so take a listen to the first 15 minutes. (It's a great show, too. I subscribe to it and so should you.)

No, this isn't about the evil company referenced in the "Dead Or Alive" games, but my misfortune in buying a Logitech Harmony 720 remote control from Costco. To cut to the punchline, the damn battery wouldn't charge and I've got to take it back. Dead right out of the brand new box. I found posts on the Harmony support forums that indicate this isn't a unique occurrence either. Pffft. Glad I didn't drive 50 miles out of my way or order from online. I use a Logitech mouse and have a kicking set of 5.1 surround speakers on my PC by them, but this is some piss-poor quality control, I must say. The sad part is that I had picked up a remote from the stack in the store and put it back in favor of another copy because the blister pack was scratched. Sheesh. I'll bet that one would've worked.

UPDATE: Exchanged it and the moment I popped the battery pack into the new one, it showed signs of life. I thought it odd that a battery would ship with no juice whatsoever.

The voluptuous horror that is Britney Spears torpedoed her putative comeback at the MTV Video Music Awards last night. (Who knew they showed videos on that channel?) As much as we love our schadenfreude at celebrities, this is still pretty sad to witness.

Who knew that that Christina Aguilera would turn out to be the respectable Mouskabimbo and K.Fed would be the responsible parent? Go figure.

UPDATE:This article ponders whether it's mean to pick on her not looking as hot as she did when she was 20 and unspoiled by delivering Irish twins. I don't think she look that bad, though a more figure-flattering corset may've been advisable. If she had come out and performed with some alacrity, then no one would be picking on her pooch; it's because she sandbagged the performance that caused the knives to come out.

As former Vice President Al Gore waits to hear if he has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless effort on climate change, a new video will air this weekend capturing Gore on a fuel-guzzling private jet!

In other words: "Dog bites man; claims to be vegan." Yawn. This is news how?

WALK, FRED, WALK! - Laid-back bloke/actor Fred Thompson culminates 6 months of teasing with the announcement he will be running for President. Again, yawn. You know who have got to be a bit cheesed off by this? The actors who appeared in episodes of "Law & Order" that featured the Tennessee tornado because with those episodes now in the vaults until next November (or whenever Fred's done playing around) due to a tortured idea of what equal time means - the same happened with Ahnuld - they won't be earning residuals.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

I just saw that I started one of these three weeks ago and never finished it and posted it. Karl Rove isn't news-worthy anymore, is he? Oh, well....

RESOLVED: ALYSSA MILANO IS A BETTER ACTRESS THAN JESSICA ALBA - I've posted before that despite Alba being a smoking hottie who always looks classy on the red carpet, seems like a genuinely nice person and has managed to avoid self-destructing like Lindsey Lohan, she hasn't given any evidence of being able to act a lick. She tries, but never really attains any level of credibility. OTOH, Milano isn't really known as a thespian - that means she acts, not that she digs chicks - but based on one scene in the cheesy smut horror flick "Embrace of the Vampire", she exhibits more range in a few moments than Alba has in her entire career.

For those unfamiliar with the flick, it's about....oh, who cares? It's the film where 90% of the celebrity skin frame grabs of Milano came from. It's worth a look if you're into former sitcom stars grown up. Anyhoo, in one scene, Milano's mousy co-ed is tentatively seduced by Charlotte Lewis, who is photographing her using a magical camera without a minimum focusing distance. As Lewis strips off Milano's clothes, Alyssa's face flickers all sorts of conflicting emotions, any three of which are two more than Alba has exhibited. You can see 15 seconds of the scene here (definitely NSFW!!!) and when you watch it the second time, take a look at her face.

THIS IS PROGRESS? - I picked up a new HD DVD deck last week - Toshiba's flagship HD-XA2 which has been hailed for its exceptional handling of standard DVDs. Well, the picture is quite nice, but there are a few niggling - look it up; it's not racist, you tools - problems with it, most notable that the damn thing can't resume after being turned off; i.e. if you stop in mid-movie, when you start again, you'll need to chapter-skip and fast-forward to where you stopped. This is unbelievable and I've been tearing up the the AVS forums with missives, of which this is typical:

If after 8 months and firmware updates from 1.0 to 2.2, the fact that they haven't added this core usability feature, something so basic as to be incomprehensible that it would be left out, I seriously doubt Toshiba will be patching it in. Perhaps this will be the killer feature of the A35?

This is absolutely inexcusable, especially when the HD DVD specification stipulates that all HD DVD players must have at least 128 MB of built-in flash memory. This is optionally expandable and is used to store downloaded content (e.g. trailers, games, additional advanced applications) or information about the viewer’s HD DVD collection – favorite bookmarks, high scores, frame grabs of video etc. (Source) They have memory for storing HD DVD bookmarks, but not simple "here's where we left off" points?!?!?!? Are you freaking kidding me?!?!?

Last night, while watching "Stranger Than Fiction" (SD), the XA2 froze up when I tried to access a featurette and after it had been sitting at the features menu for about an hour, while I'd flipped over to watch some TV, it refused to eject the disk. Both times I had to hold the power button down to shut it off and then reboot. Both times, my g/f is looking at me with that "So, how is this an improvement?" look that's hard to refute.

A long time ago, I read an article about Jaguar owners who loved their cars and put up with annoyances like them not wanting to start on rainy days due to traditionally shoddy British electrical systems. They thought it was part of the charm. I thought, "If you owned an $8000 Ford Escort," - I said it was a long time ago - "you would be calling it a lemon and cursing the maker, but since it's a $40,000 luxury sports car, you're willing to put up with it and consider it part of being a satisfied customer?"

Exactly.

Hermione called last night to say that she was watching some movies and she could tell the picture was better, but she hates the remote and thinks the lack of resume is Larry Craig.

SPEAKING OF LARRY CRAIG - What is it about the Stupid Party that they can't even manage to pull off a sex scandal properly? Well, when President Hillary! or Obama surrenders to the Islamofascists, I'm sure our new Taliban masters won't take any chances with the hokey-pokey (left foot in, left foot out) Craig; he'll be beheaded for his homosexuality. Why aren't liberal gays worried about their necks? Do they think they'll be spared by the grateful jihadists for their collaboration as liberals in overthrowing America?

Gee, do you think Dubya will get a similar reappraisal from the media jackals in 2011 as to how he was smeared and lied about by the Treason Media who was so committed to destroying him that they damaged and endangered the country and its security?

Nowrasteh, also one of the miniseries' many producers, said he was told by a top executive at ABC Studios that "if Hillary weren't running for president, this wouldn't be a problem."

Well, duh, Bub. The Clintons are the belles of Hollywood's balls and the miniseries was given the beatdown for daring to speak Truth about the fecklessness of the Clinton Regime's mishandling of the growing Islamofascist threat during the Nineties. Why do you think Sandy Burglar was stealing documents from the National Archives? To erase history which would reflect poorly on Hillary!'s bogus bona fides about being able to confront the jihad. Duh, again.

BIOSHOCK = TEH SHIZNATCH, YO! If you like shooters and you've got an Xbox 360 or (preferably) a beefy PC, you must check out the supremely atmospheric Bioshock. Of course, "atmospheric" is an ironic word to use for a game set at the bottom of the sea. There is some anti-intellectual backlashing starting to be heard of the "it ain't all that stripe, but ignore them and listen to me: It's one of the best games you'll play this year and it's shaping up to be a great year for games. Join the Cult of Rapture.

DIRK'S DISHES DU JOUR: That's right...TAG TEAM BABES! Even though one's a better actress than the other, that's not to say there isn't room for both of them, ya dig?

See? It's all love here and they've kissed and made up and uh...uh....